Category Archives: Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

This year Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori coincides with #MahuruMāori – a reo challenge to speak Māori for the month of September. Here at Hocken and across the Libraries we continued with our kaupapa from recent years to promote rangahau Māori and this year we especially highlight Postgraduate Māori research in displays and in Postgraduate Māori research presentations at Hocken.

This morning at our opening event, we were treated with a fantastic kōrero from Te Koronga Researcher Ngahuia Mita. Ngahuia graduated with a Master’s degree in Physical Education with distinction from the School of Physical Education, Sport & Exercise Sciences last year, and then travelled to Antarctica with Professor Christina Hulbe, Kelly Gragg and Michelle Ryan under the Ross Ice Shelf Programme. Ngahuia’s kōrero was complemented by the launch of an exhibit in the Hocken Foyer celebrating Māori and Polynesian voyagers to Antarctica, displaying a range of Antarctic resources from the Hocken Collections.

Tawhana kahukura i runga, ko Hui-te-Rangiora te moana i tere ai

The rainbows span the heavens whilst Hui-te-Rangiora speeds over the oceans

Celebrating Māori and Polynesian Voyagers to Antarctica

Hui-Te-Rangiora

Rarotongan narratives and traditions of Ngāti Rārua and Te Āti Awa tell the story of a Polynesian explorer, Hui-Te-Rangiora, or, Ui-Te-Rangiora, the first to travel to the Antarctic around 650 AD. Hui-Te-Rangiora returned with stories of icebergs, naming the land: “Te Tai-Uka-a-Pia”meaning “sea foaming like arrowroot” comparing the similar characteristics of the starchy scrapings with the sheets of floating ice and snow.

Hui-Te-Rangiora remains remembered and honoured as he sits atop the whare tūpuna (ancestral house) Tūrangapeke at Te Awhina marae in Motueka, and atop the waharoa (gateway) at the entrance to Te Puna o Riuwaka (the Riuwaka Resurgence), a place he is said to have taken rest preparing himself spiritually and physically for the epic voyage to the Southern Ocean.

Tuati

The first New Zealander to enter Antarctic waters was a Māori man named Tuati, a crew member aboard the Vincennes during Lieutenant Charles Wilkes’ United States Exploring Expedition of 1839-1840. Son of a Scottish whaler Captain William Stewart and his Ngāpuhi wife, Tuati was also known as Te Atu, John Sac and John Stewart.

Tuati worked both as a seaman and as an interpreter, accompanying Wilkes when the expedition stopped in French Polynesia. In his narrative of the expedition, Wilkes describes “Tuatti” as “an excellent sailor, a very good fellow”.

The New Zealand Geographic Board commemorated Tuati’s first sighting of Antarctica by naming a peak after him in Antarctica’s Royal Society Range 150 years later.

Dr Louis Hauiti Potaka

Captain A. L. Nelson, commander of the Discovery II., welcoming Dr Potaka on embarking aboard the Discovery, en route to Little America, where he will take the place of Dr G. Shirey as medical officer to the Byrd Expedition. Evening Star, 15 February 1934, page 2, Hocken Newspapers Collection

Louis Hauiti Potaka, born at Utika, Whanganui in 1901, was the fifth Māori medical graduate in New Zealand and served as doctor for Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s second Antarctic expedition in 1934-1935.

Potaka studied medicine at the University of Otago from 1920-1929, graduating with his MBChB in 1930. Following graduation, he worked at Nelson Public Hospital and in Murchison. When the Byrd expedition’s original doctor was unable to winter over in Antarctica, a call went out for a replacement doctor and Potaka was selected.

In February 1934, Potaka boarded the Royal Research Society’s Discovery II, which called into Port Chalmers especially to pick him up. The vessel took him to rendezvous with the rest of the team on the Bear of Oakland in the Ross Sea before their four-day journey through pack ice to ‘Little America’.

While in Antarctica Potaka performed an emergency appendectomy, extracted teeth, conducted health checks on the team and dealt with a broken arm and frostbite. Non-medical activities included chess, movies and digging in the ice for buried items from Byrd’s first expedition, 1928-1930.

On his return to Dunedin via Byrd’s supply ship Jacob Ruppert in February 1935, he said he had enjoyed his experience but was glad to be back.

Potaka then went back to Nelson to work as a locum and Native Medical Officer for Dr Edward Coventry Bydder but the arrangement did not go well. He left to set up his own practice with support from the local community, but British Medical Association rules instructed him to leave the district to practice elsewhere. His vision was also deteriorating due to ultraviolet keratitis (snow blindness), a condition he developed while in Antarctica, and made worse by its remedy at the time – cocaine drops. His failing eyesight and unhappiness at work weighed heavily on him, leading to depression and his premature death by morphine overdose.

Two years later, his mother received the US Congressional Medal in appreciation of her son’s work for the Byrd expedition. The US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names named an inlet after him on the north side of Thurston Island.

Randal (Ray) Murray Heke

Ministry of Works, Clerk of Works Ray Heke was part of the 1955-1958 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Edmund Hillary. Heke was foreman for the construction party made up of men from the HMNZS Endeavour and the New Zealand Army, guiding the construction of New Zealand’s first Antarctic base, Scott Base, while Hillary and his team were off on their journey to the South Pole.

Originally from Waikanae, Heke, now 89 years old, was awarded the New Zealand Antarctic medal in June this year. Proud to have been one of the first Māori in the ice, of his Antarctic experience he said:

“I got on very well with Ed and he was a great leader and as leader of the construction team I got to know him very well down there. He was keeping an eye on progress and what I was doing and it was something I will always remember, being involved in his preparation to travel to the South Pole and my building the base from which he was to take off for his expedition.” Waateanews.com, September 5, 2017

Ramon (Ray) Tito

Able Seaman Ramon Tito was also part of the 1955-1958 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Edmund Hillary, voyaging to Antarctica on the HMNZS Endeavour. Tito (also named Te Tou in some accounts) officially raised the New Zealand flag at the opening of Scott Base in 1956. Recalling the event nearly 50 years later, Tito said:

“At the time we were having a beard-growing contest and because I had less hair than Jim, I got the job to raise the flag. I did not think too much of it but when I got home from that trip, everyone would say, ‘There’s the guy who put the flag up.’ Then I started thinking, maybe I did do something.” Call of the Ice, p.29

Robert J. (Bob) Sopp

Diesel engineer and fitter mechanic from Kaingaroa Forest, Wairoa, Hawke’s Bay, Bob Sopp was selected as one of twelve wintering personnel for the tenth New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition, and as part of the 1966-1967 US Operation Deep Freeze. At only 21 years of age, Sopp had complete charge of the diesel generating plant supplying all power for the base.

Sopp carved a tekoteko (figurehead) which was presented by Scott Base to the CPO Mess at McMurdo Station. The carving was inscribed:“Rurea Taitea, kia Toitū, ko Taikaka” which means to strip away the sapwood and expose the heartwood. It also means to choose friends who are dependable and steadfast. The whakataukī (proverb) acknowledged especially the journey in cultural restoration and understanding, and reflected the working culture of those in Antarctica.

My name is Ngahuia and I come from Te Tairāwhiti (The East Coast of the North Island). In the summer of 2016/17 I had the honour of travelling to Antarctica alongside scientists including Professor Christina Hulbe, Kelly Gragg and Michelle Ryan under the Ross Ice Shelf Programme (funded by NZARI Aotearoa). The wider purpose of the research programme is to examine the Ross Ice Shelf and its response to climate change. My role was as an intern focusing on Māori and Polynesian voyages to Antarctica and thus the whakapapa connection that we as Māori and Polynesian descendants have to the continent. The findings of this research highlight the importance of the inclusion of Māori and Polynesian voices in Antarctic research. The work of Antarctic scientists is ground-breaking and critical in understanding our planets response to climate change, a change that ultimately effects Māori, coastal communities and all of us. Therefore I believe the inclusion of mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) can only enhance these approaches. I acknowledge those who made it possible for me to experience what our tīpuna (ancestors) would have hundreds of years ago and all of the Māori Antarctic scientists, kaimahi (workers) and explorers that have gone before me.

List of items on display

Map showing some recorded voyages of the Polynesians, page 3, in Best, E. 1923. Polynesian Voyagers: The Maori as a Deep-Sea Navigator, Explorer and Colonizer, Wellington, NZ: Government Printer. Hocken Published Collection.

Captain A. L. Nelson, commander of the Discovery II., welcoming Dr Potaka on embarking aboard the Discovery, en route to Little America, where he will take the place of Dr G. Shirey as medical officer to the Byrd Expedition. Evening Star, 15 February 1934, page 2, Hocken Newspapers Collection.

‘Medical locker’ supplies list and Inward Manifest list of crew from the SS Jacob Ruppert, 1934, from Crew lists, invoices and bills of lading, H.L. Tapley and Company Limited: Papers relating to the Admiral

Every year for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori the Hocken develops a Foyer Exhibition to promote Māori collections, Māori research and Māori language. In 2015 Jeanette Wikaira and Dr Anne Marie Jackson from Te Kura Parawhakawai, the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, worked with the Hocken’s poster collection to develop Te Reo o te Hauora – Te Hauora o te Reo. This small exhibition examined Māori Health Promotion posters to plot the development of Hauora Māori, looking at the wider socio-political context from which Māori health promotion grew, from the 1950s through to more recent Māori health promotional campaigns. The display also considers how the development of Maori Health corresponds with the health of the Māori language through the increasing use to Te Reo Māori within health promotional material. From this collaboration, an online exhibition will also be developed with Te Koronga, a Māori postgraduate research excellence group within the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences. The Hocken has digitised a collection of Māori Health Promotion posters for this project ranging from the 1950s through to the 2000s; some of which came from the University of Otago’s Smithells Gymnasium and were donated to the Hocken from the School of Physical Education.

Te Reo o te Hauora – Te Hauora o te Reo is up until August 28th.

HAUORA MO NGA IWI MAORI – HEALTH PROMOTION FOR MĀORI

Historically health promotion for Māori applied generic health promotion campaigns to Māori individuals and communities. The health promotion objectives seen in the posters from the 1950s, was to promote European notions of ‘good’ health to Māori such as cleanliness and sanitation and framed within a deeply entrenched view that Māori needed to assimilate into European society in order to survive. A commonly held perception from the mid-nineteenth century through to the early twentieth century was that the Māori people, language and culture would be incapable of withstanding the progress of Western civilisation and colonisation.

KA WHAWHAI TONU MĀTOU – RESISTANCE AND ACTIVISM

Resistance and activism increasingly became strategic approaches of Māori development throughout the 1960s and 1970s. After the 1970 Young Māori Leaders Conference held at Auckland University, the first truly radical group, Ngā Tamatoa, took the issues of Māori rights into the public arena and protest action headlined across New Zealand with the Land March of 1975; the occupation of Bastion Point in 1977 and the 1978 occupation of the Raglan Golf Course. Māori activism also created proactive community projects such as a nation-wide petition for the recognition of Māori language in the education system. The petition contained 30,000 signatures seeking support for Māori language to be taught in schools. The argument over the value associated with Māori language use in a modern world was at the heart of the debate and bilingual schools and community initiated language approaches such as Te Ataarangi and Te Kohanga Reo developed in this period.

TEKAU TAU O TE TIPURANGA MĀORI – THE DECADE OF MĀORI DEVELOPMENT

Self-determination ran at the core of Māori protest in the 1960s and 1970s. This protest acted as stimulus for change and the creation of ideological space for contemporary Māori development. The decade of Māori development launched at the 1984 Hui Taumata heralded major transformations in approaches to Māori social, cultural and economic advancement. As part of the transformative process, a Māori developmental agenda was incorporated into government strategies and policies and this can be seen in the Māori health promotional material over this period. Māori health promotional material transformed radically throughout the 1980s and 1990s in comparison with previous decades. The use of Robyn Kahukiwa’s art was instrumental in creating a visual imagery of Hauora Māori that situated Māori in the Māori world. With this new imagery and a heightened use of Te Reo Māori in the form of whakatauaki or traditional sayings, Māori health messages at this time, many of which had an anti-smoking message, were reframed from a deficit approach to a more positive and aspirational approach referring to Māori health as a taonga to be nurtured.

HAUORA MĀORI

Hauora Māori recognises a notion of health that is framed within the parameters of a Māori worldview and requires a sound understanding of the social, economic, political, cultural and historical determinants of health among Māori people. A Māori worldview is the cultural and philosophical perspective of Māori health that maintains continuity with traditional knowledge, identity, language, customs and beliefs, along with contemporary and future focussed perspectives. In this way, Māori health is not limited to physical, mental and spiritual conditions of today. It recognises the relationship with past experience and knowledge, as well as aspirations and concerns for future generations. Māori health promotional material from the 21st Century moves some way towards reflecting Hauora Māori, in particular with the use of Te Reo Māori and the portrayal of Māori in everyday contexts. However with changes in Government funding priorities and the development of iwi Māori ability to provide Hauora services and messages directly to their communities, Māori health posters over recent years, when compared to previous decades, have taken on a mainstream approach to Māori Health promotion.

In 19th century Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori-language newspapers carried the written word of the day throughout the land. The first newspapers in te reo Māori were published by the colonial government shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Māori quickly realised the benefits of this new instrument of communication and by 1862 embraced print culture with the publishing of their own press.

Newspapers held great value for Māori because they provided access to new knowledge. Māori saw the power in news and the pleasure that could be derived from its consumption and its sharing. A new platform emerged offering opportunities to voice opinions and concerns. A reading community developed, connecting the population and bringing iwi together through issues of land, mana and rangatiratanga. The linguistic richness and rhythms of whaikōrero were carried over to the newspapers in the publication of letters and vigorous debates of politics, religion and education. Through newspapers, the spoken word could be transported beyond the marae.

Aside from the wide and varied coverage of local, national and foreign news, correspondence offers remarkable insight into storytelling, recipes and family gatherings. Obituaries farewell notable personages with revealing reflections on everyday life. Travellers describe journeys. Practical advice is offered on health and farming. Writings include whakapapa, waiata and whakatauākī, and discussions of wairua and kēhua.

Te Hokioi was the first publication printed from a Māori perspective, on a press gifted to the Māori king by the Emperor of Austria. This and papers that followed, Te Paki o Matariki, Huia Tangata Kotahi,Te Puke Ki Hikurangi, illustrate the confidence of Māori in printing their own language. They also demonstrate the variation of written Māori over time, in its translation, and diversity in language usage among different iwi.

Some of the items on display in the Hocken Foyer

The display at Hocken joins together a range of Māori-language newspapers printed by Māori and by Pakeha. The purpose of the display is to illustrate and celebrate historical records of Māori language held at Hocken. These printed pages remain a rich resource for Māori political, cultural and social history and represent invaluable taonga for the information they offer on ideas, experiences and everyday life of Māori. The display was co-curated with Dr Lachy Paterson from Te Tumu, University of Otago, who has conducted extensive research in niupepa Māori.

For Māori, place and place names act as constant reminders not only of where one is, but of who one is – without one the other does not exist.

Māori named the landscape as a way of emphasising claim to the land, to describe features, to immortalise people or events for historic or spiritual reasons and to celebrate cultural icons. In the absence of a written language, naming the land committed the landscape to memory. The events and characteristics associated with the landscape anchor it and give it a durable reference, as well as floating access to a huge range of oral information. In this way, Māori place names are peopled and named at a variety of levels.

The Southern Districts of New Zealand: From the Admiralty Chart of 1838

The wealth of information within the maps and manuscripts on display in the Hocken foyer, were created by Māori in the post-European era, for reasons other than what Māori needed to know about or to express to themselves. Information was offered to, or maps were drawn at the request of British officials, surveyors and other Europeans to explain the lay of the land and its access routes, the location of resources, flat land, good soil, fishing grounds and safe anchorages. Māori who created the maps and provided the information within the manuscripts could clearly describe spatial relationships and had a fundamental sense of where they were geographically, preserving as much tightly compacted and coded material by reducing complexity to an information-rich abstract. European needs may have defined the focus of the materials on display, but not the instinctive style nor the acute knowledge of the land that is within them.

Some of the manuscripts on display

The Māori who authored these maps and manuscripts provided information about the land via a conversation, a korero. It was the supporting richness that existed within the oral tradition that embedded the layers of information within the land, making the Māori landscape a human landscape filled with stories. Within both the maps and the manuscripts on display, one can readily visualise this. The talking, the drawing of lines to illustrate, the conferring, the calling on a huge floating resource of story, song, experience, myth, spirituality, history, learned detail, relationships, genealogies, memories, paths walked, food resources gathered and the feel and smell of the presence of the land.

Items on display include:

MAPS

The Southern Districts of New Zealand: From the Admiralty Chart of 1838. Hocken Collections. Illustration above.

Before the written word in New Zealand, Māori lived with an oral language reaching back to the homeland of Hawaiki. Within an oral tradition there is company and conversation, ritual and performance, and the warmth and intimacy of the human voice. That voice is carried on the living breath, linking the present to the ancestral past.

It was into this world of oral knowledge that the early Europeans introduced a print culture and its attendant literacy. Once Māori mastered the art of writing as well as an introduced orthography, they became prolific correspondents. Māori wrote not only to each other, but also to the new governing power. In their correspondence, Māori developed a written convention based largely on the protocol of the marae and particularly that of whaikorero. Letters on display, one from Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipi Te Waharoa illustrate this use of the oral tradition extending into letter writing.

The introduction of literacy also saw changes to Māori language use with a shift of emphasis from the ear to the eye. It was no longer necessary to commit the words of rituals to memory because they could be written down and referred to when required. This resulted in Māori families across Aotearoa committing genealogies, tribal histories, chants and proverbs to the written page rather than to memory. Many of these notebooks have found their way into heritage collections such as the Hocken and some of these are included in the exhibition.

As the literate Māori population burgeoned in the 1830s and 1840s, Europeans were also employing learning technologies intent on gaining insight and understanding into Māori language, knowledge and culture. Illustrating this are two taonga from Europeans who lived in the Waikouaiti area. Wesleyan Missionary James Watkin’s notebook of collected Māori vocabulary shows Kai Tahu dialect and Watkin’s detailed enthusiasm for learning te reo rakatira. Also on display are Land agent W.B.D. Mantell’s unique bundles of cards recording phonetically, the names of hapū of Otago. Presumably they were developed by Mantell as a mnemonic learning device to understand the relationships between groups of hapū and their associated land and natural resource rights.

On display at the Hocken Collections is a simple exhibition of 10 taonga. The exhibition was co-curated with Associate Professor Poia Rewi, Dr Katharina Ruckstuhl and Nikita Hall from the University of Otago who are researching Māori Language use among Dunedin whānau. We wanted to bring together a collection of taonga that celebrate the enduring mana of the Māori language; taonga that illustrate how the oral tradition, invigorated by the written word, continues to express the tone and soul of the people.

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